I've shared a PR. This PR makes a couple of other small changes for consistency. My biggest concern is changing this menu item, it will take a while for folks to get used to this change from "Custom blocks" to "Reusable custom blocks."

For the menu, it might be less jarring a change if we list "Custom blocks (reusable)". While listing them as "Reusable custom blocks" in other places.

Here is an alternative, that does not change the admin menu structure so much.

I'm in favor of this change here 👍🏼

As I mentioned in #5922:

• If we were introducing this feature now, I would certainly find Reusable custom blocks over the current Custom blocks way more fitting. So 👍🏼 from me on the change proposed

...but also:

• Since the feature has been around for a long time, people are used to the position of the current "Custom blocks" menu item in the "Structure" top-level menu in the admin bar. Adding the word "reusable" as the first word causes the menu to be repositioned, and I expect people to find it rather disruptive/annoying. I then thought that perhaps Custom reusable blocks would be a good compromize, since it introduces the word "reusable" while at the same time retaining "custom" as the first word. That would in turn leave the order of the menu item in the admin bar unaffected.

...and then concluded to this:

• Reusable custom blocks is much better than Custom reusable blocks though (more technically accurate).

@klonos - what about "Custom blocks (reusable)" as the admin menu label?
See screenshot: #6531 (comment)

I think both Custom blocks (reusable) and Reusable custom blocks are a bit too verbose. Originally the page was simply called "Blocks" and we already changed it to "Custom blocks".

@quicksketch - Maybe this issue has a longer history that I should become familiar with. I tried to find an issue talking about the change you mention, but there are too many issues about blocks. ;-)

I don't know if my specific suggestion is the best suggestion, but I feel like creating a page titled "Custom Blocks" and then not showing all custom blocks on that page is misleading and confusing. I think that Reusable custom blocks are important, but I've long worked under the misperception that while I can reuse them on different pages, my edits to the block content will not persisist across different placements.

It seems that "Custom Blocks" and "Reusable Custom Blocks" are fundamentally different and this page is currently masking that difference and suggesting that they are in fact more similar than they really are.

@klonos has some good ideas that I think will help people better understand custom blocks and reusable custom blocks and I'll be advocating for some of those changes. I hoped this might be an easy improvement, while waiting for more substancial changes.

For now, maybe I'll file a bug report to complain about the fact that my custom blocks are not showing up on the manage custom blocks page.

;-)

If we can't change the page title to make it more accurate, at a minimum we should look at improving that help text to make it more descriptive.

Can we at least change this:

"These blocks are available to be placed in any layout in the Layoutspage."

To this (or something like this?):

"This page lists all Reusable Custom blocks that are available to be placed in any layout in the Layouts page. Updating the content of these reusable blocks will affect all layouts where they are placed!

I think that a little more information here will help a lot of people better understand a fairly important and often used feature that is easily misunderstood.

I'm all for updating the help text 👍

Let's be consistent with "Reusable Custom blocks" vs "reusable custom blocks". Since these are not proper nouns (like the name of a module) I would suggest just all lowercase.

As a UX improvement/bug, this could get in at any point - we don't need to wait for a minor release. What we need is consensus!

I think both Custom blocks (reusable) and Reusable custom blocks are a bit too verbose. Originally the page was simply called "Blocks" and we already changed it to "Custom blocks".

I do not share the same concern as @quicksketch with regards to the length of the words here, but I do share the concern of changing things again and again. That, in conjunction with the following things makes me hesitate:

• I feel that "reusable" is not 100% accurate to describe what these blocks are or how they behave
• I also feel that "reusable" does not do a good job at intuitively explaining the difference between "regular", non-reusable blocks vs. the "reusable" ones (not without documentation, help text in the UI and lots of additional explanation around what that word means in Backdrop specifically)
• technically all blocks are "reusable"
• I find the terms "shared content block" or "mirrored content block" or "cloned content block" more accurate and straight-forward

...I am fine with changing the help text to say "reusable custom blocks". I'm also fine with changing the page title (but not the admin menu links for now).

I would like to propose that in the help text we emphasize the word "reusable" (italics or bold).

I'm struggling to have a strong opinion on this. I think both "reusable custom block" and "shared content block" are both good ideas. I don't think "mirrored content" or "cloned content" are appropriate as some custom blocks might only be used once and these descriptions suggest it has already been cloned or mirrored. Also "cloned" suggests a copy at a snapshot in time rather than keeping updated with changes across all copies.

Thanks @yorkshire-pudding 🙏🏼 ...that is excellent feedback 👍🏼

Let's call them "Quantum Blocks" because it sounds good and because the content lives in two places simotaneously at one time.

:-)

It's one of the oddest tenets of quantum theory: a particle can be in two places at once (link)

@quicksketch and @klonos - I understand that this not urgent, so we don't have to rush this in. BUT, just in case, I removed the changes to the menu items and focused on some improvements to help text. The risk is very low here and I do think that even these small changes in help text are an improvement.

Let's call them "Quantum Blocks" because it sounds good and because the content lives in two places simotaneously at one time.

:-)

It's one of the oddest tenets of quantum theory: a particle can be in two places at once (link)

Isn't another bit of quantum theory, in quantum computing, that they can be simultaneously 0 and 1, so the blocks could be both enabled and disabled at the same time?

• Dr. Strange blocks 🤣
• omnipresent blocks (or "omni-blocks" for short)

...in all seriousness though, I'm having a look at the PR @stpaultim 👀

@stpaultim I like where this is going, thank you 🙏🏼

I've left a couple of suggestions in the PR for consideration.

Here's another suggestion:

• remove the bold Updating the content of these reusable blocks will affect all layouts where they are placed! text from admin/structure/block (lets eave that for the edit forms/dialogs when creating/editing reusable blocks, to be done as part of [UX] Improve the UI and workflows related to reusable blocks #4108)
• replace that text with a variation that incorporates some of the description text that you added for the blocks, which I really like: Create reusable custom blocks that can be placed in multiple layouts and edited in one place.

So the final text in admin/structure/block could be something like this:

This page lists all blocks with reusable content. Such blocks can be placed in multiple layouts and editing their content can be done from a single place.

...or:

This page lists all blocks with reusable content. These blocks allow you to share content across multiple layouts, while being able to edit the content from a single place.

That ^^ makes it sound like a feature, rather than a warning 😉

@jenlampton @yorkshire-pudding @olafgrabienski (and others) what do you think re the above ^^?

...this brainstorming makes me want to change the "Make this block reusable" label in the checkbox to "Share this content across multiple layouts" in my PR for #4108. Makes it so much more straight-forward.

@klonos - I like those suggestions. Preference for "These" over "Such"

Modified with some, but not all, of the suggestions from @klonos. Sorry, I don't like "reusable content." :-(
@yorkshire-pudding - this version does not use "these" or "such."
I'm going to hold off on any more changes, until we hear from more people.

Looks good @stpaultim

Same here, I liked the suggestions, and the modification by @stpaultim looks good.